


Their Names Were Forgiveness: The Legend of Heda and Wanheda

by Lyssicole



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Clexa, F/F, Mythology - Freeform, Soulmates Clarke Griffin/Lexa, adding significance to lexa twirling her damn dagger bc why not, clexa told as a legend, look theres a child, minimal angst, they share a fucking soul, twist ending, wanheda/heda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 21:19:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7238905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyssicole/pseuds/Lyssicole
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of Heda and Wanheda, told years after a tragic death. In the style of mythology, Clarke and Lexa are known only by their legendary names. Still, the intimacy and detail of their story is reflected when told by a mother to her daughter. Despite the grandiosity of any legend, such as the ominous fate when Wanheda removes her hood or the extreme romanticism when Lexa falls to her knees, this is a story that is real. This is story in which meaning is attributed to each and every one of Clarke and Lexa’s actions, in which the ending is quite different. That being said, the story diverts from canon toward the end. There is a twist. Nonetheless, it is peaceful but still devastating, as the pure essence of these two’s relationships is the deepest of loves, marked by tragedy. The story of Heda and Wanheda is precise, it is enamoring, and it is a bit heart wrenching. For Clarke and Lexa, though, there will always be a new beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Their Names Were Forgiveness: The Legend of Heda and Wanheda

**Author's Note:**

> The summary says it all. Basically, read if you are looking to relish in the greatness that which is Clexa. I seriously think they will go down in history, and I believe this fic reflects that. This story is told as if their history is mythology, like any legend we read about in storybooks. Clarke and Lexa probably are the most incredible and yet realistic legend of all time, but that’s just me. I hope you enjoy this lengthy fic aimed to pull at your heart strings, and please, please stick it out to the end. That’s my favorite part! And I think it will make you very happy:)

“Will you read me the story nomon? Please?”

“Not tonight, yongon. It’s late.”

“It’s early, from another perspective,” the child of about seven quips.

Her mother laughs. Her daughter has just about reached the age in which sarcasm mingles with wit, an age her mother knows can be met early but never recovered from. “Fine. But only if you close your eyes. No peaking.” Her mother moves, as if to collect the parchment which the child’s most cherished story is written on. What the small girl doesn’t know is this story has never been written down, as it passes and changes much too often from mouth to mouth. Some tell it to their children, some tell it to their lovers, and tonight, a mother recounts the tale to her daughter, from her memory where the words and images shift like planets but stay rooted like stars. Like trees that only grow upward, that bend and twist but never move from where they started, she will start, she decides in a place which her daughter has never heard.

“Are your eyes closed?” She asks her, even though there is no need considering that the young one’s eyelids are sealed so tightly that her mother can see how her lashes dance as she twitches them in anticipation. Her mother scooches closer, propping herself onto the bed centered in her daughter’s small enclosure. When she herself draws her eyes together, she can still decipher the flicker of candles adorning the corners of the cave-like walls. She peers upon her daughter to the see how the light’s illumination has evoked the paleness of her skin, the blueness of her veins. She can nearly distinguish the curve of her daughter’s smile despite it being buried in the pillow when she nods. She wishes to hear it again.

“Many times over, a soul was formed at the very edge of the universe. The soul was intricate, it was much different from any other soul that had been formed before. It belonged to someone very special, someone who had yet to be born.”

“Nomon,” the child suddenly says. “I’ve never heard this before. What about the girl who fell from the sky, and the one who lived on the earth?” 

“Patience, ai yongon. Be patient.”

The girl nods, but she has fully sat herself up, her eyes wide in wonder. “This soul was the most exquisite one to ever come to be. It was far more advanced in leadership and empathy than any other soul existing amongst the human race. It terrified the makers of life, it horrified them that something could possibly be so perfect. And so they took a dagger, the sharpest they could find, and they split the soul in two. They knew it could never survive as it was, so disconnected, separate and never whole.” 

The mother breathes in. She has never told this part of the story before. The only other person who knew this truth died many, many years ago. “The makers of life had long since done such an awful thing. In fact, the last atrocity they had committed was allowing life on earth to generate a massive war. They allowed the human race to destroy itself. Well, almost.” 

“What do you mean?” The child asks, her spine as rigid as a tree.

“Somehow, a small number of humans survived on the ground. They repopulated and began life in a new way, a way some may call savage. A way we now know as our own. But another group of people managed to stay alive too. They launched themselves up into the stars. Do you remember when I showed you the Big Dipper?”

“Yes,” the child giggles, and nuzzles into the nape of her mother’s neck. “You told me it made you think of home.”

Her mother doesn’t quite grimace but she can’t exactly smile either. “It did,” she says. “It does. The people formed a station up there, the Ark they called it. Their society was full of technology and calculations. The people on the ground, though, they lived less in a world of experimentation and instead tradition. Regardless, the two separate places were as different as they were similar. Both needed strict rules to protect their people, to ensure the survival of the next generation.”

“But what about the broken soul?” 

“Ah,” her mother sighs quietly. “The souls. When the soul was pierced by the dagger, it ceased to be one. Rather than breaking, it divided itself. The mind traveled to one side, and the heart traveled to the other. But, this soul had such a brilliant mind and a caring heart that both pieces were wise and both pieces were compassionate. Instead of barely functioning without one other, each soul could operate on its own. The only downfall was that the pieces could be complemented by one another but simply were not.”

“However, just like it rains from the clouds of the sky to the roots of the ground, a soul must join a body. During the war, while the two pieces were waiting to be imprinted, they were separated. The two pieces of the soul joined different bodies and once they were merged with human skin, they could no longer recall that they ever belonged with someone else. The souls knew one another, but the bodies did not, so all the people who harbored the souls ever sensed was sort of an unsettling feeling that something—someone—was waiting for them.” 

“Like when you say if I am quiet falling asleep, I’ll see Mommy in my dreams?”

Her mother, the living one, lets air stall into her throat. Tears coat her lashes and she pulls her daughter closer only so she will not see them. “Yes,” she replies. “Like that.”

“Is this the part of the story I know? With the two girls?”

Her mother only nods, because she knows her voice will crack if she tries to speak. But if there’s anything you should know about this woman, it’s that she tries anyway. “Why don’t you tell that part?” She whispers into her daughter’s hair. 

“Okay. Well every night, a girl on the ground would look up at the stars. Her eyes were green like moss, and her hair fell all the way down her back. Nomon, do you think I will have hair like that one day?” 

“Maybe someday,” she remarks before she can turn over the words and shoulder the weight of what they meant when they were said many years before.

“She was the leader of all her people, so she never had much time to just relax. But at night, she would search for answers in the sky.

“And in the depth of the darkness twined with light,” her mother continues, “she just found more questions. To be Commander is to be alone, she was always told. But she ached for someone in her heart, the heart that never fully formed because the majority of it belonged to someone else, she dreamed that one day, a lover would stand by her every choice. When she was in doubt, that lover would give her confirmation. Or sometimes, she would challenge her, and they would argue but never with raised voices, instead with just contrasting ideas that even the greatest doctors and leaders couldn’t come up with. They would achieve peace, so long as it was together.”

Her daughter nods, now cuddled back into her tan cloth blankets. “Was the one she wanted the girl from the sky?” Before her mother can even agree, her daughter continues. “Yes, she must have been. That makes sense.” Her mother smiles. Her daughter is already bright and yet gentle enough to lead her heart through the ruins without feeling all the pain of it. “The girl in the sky was sent down to earth with other people her age because there wasn’t enough space on the Ark. She was expected to die. Why didn’t she die?”

“Because on earth,” her mother answers, “she finally lived.”

“Oh. Right.” Her daughter recovers and her mother easily laughs. “She was an artist, didn’t she paint things even better than all the maps and portraits we have hanging in our study?”

“Just about,” her mother agrees, even though the artwork scattered around their humble abode is just as close to legendary as it could get. 

“She was a doctor too, sort of. Her mother was a real one, but she was training, until she got walled up in solitary confinement since her Dad figured out the Ark was dying. That’s why they were sent down to earth.”

“Yes. The Ark was dying and the girl along with the other underage criminals were considered less valuable people. Little did the community know that it was through this young woman that they would survive on the ground.” 

“Tell when they met. I love this part.”

Her mother’s eyes twinkle like meteors, sparkle like water flooding the ground. “The leader—”

“—Use their names, I love their names!” 

“Heda,” her mother corrects, “had heard much of what Wanheda had…accomplished since her arrival.” She cannot hold back a small fit of laughter. “The havoc she wreaked, well, it was hardly ignorable. Particularly alarming, Wanheda had set fire to a whole army of the Grounder people. This wasn’t supposed to be a pleasant meeting.” Her daughter giggles. “In fact, it was supposed to be anything but. Do you remember the knife that split the souls in two?” The daughter nods hurriedly. “Heda held that very dagger between her fingers and twirled it, slowly turning it over and over in anticipation of meeting the one she would have to confront about all the madness, Wanheda. And Wanheda certainly was the one after all.”

“What happened?” Her daughter exclaims, “Tell me what happened.” 

“They loathed each other, of course. Wanheda was quaking in fear that Heda would slit her throat, and Heda was snarling in the hopes that her shock that someone would dare defy her wouldn’t show. They loathed each other in glances, in body language, in tight voices. But that hatred, it was electric. It was as if it was a cancer, grasping at their bones, waiting to kill them both. But they met, and suddenly something changed. Something was different.”

“What?” The child practically yells, “What changed, what was different?” 

“They were two halves of the same whole,” her mother whispers, as her body erupts in chills “where one was weak, the other was strong. And neither of them were really all that weak, relative to the rest of the human race. Neither of them were imbalanced. It was only as if the sheer presence of the other magnified their strengths, compensated for their weaknesses. They were the most powerful leaders the world had ever seen. The universe had ever seen. They were unbreakable even if originally broken, they were cunning and patient and inventive and they were in love.”

“In love?” Her daughter gasps. “When did they fall in love?”

“Before they even met,” her mother laughs, but it sounds sad, it sounds like the ghost of a sob. “But when they did finally meet, they were on opposite ends of a war.”

“They were against each other?”

“At first. But never for long, even if the universe was against them. They both wanted to achieve peace for their people. The civilizations couldn’t each survive if they were always trying to kill each other, could they?” She doesn’t wait for her daughter’s answer. “Two people couldn’t destroy each other if they were always inexplicably and completely in love with each other. They couldn’t. Heda and Wanheda, they wouldn’t. So, while trying to defeat an outside force—The Mountain Men, they were called—they worked together. They formed a plan. They both made sacrifices. They lost people they loved, they compromised in such ways that their very own people questioned them. But they protected each other, at all costs. Heda spent her whole life training to be ruthless, but Wanheda insisted she feel. Nevertheless, Heda did everything in her power to teach Wanheda what it meant to be a leader, to survive despite the blood shed in people and in soul.”

“Wow,” her daughter exhales. “They loved each other a lot, didn’t they?”

“They loved each other so much that they grew together. They shifted and evolved. They understood one another unlike anyone had ever understood them before, but even so, they avoided their feelings. They never acknowledged them, they couldn’t, not during a war. That is, until…”

“Until what?” 

“Heda kissed Wanheda. Wanheda was wildly shocked, as she had just lost someone else she cared deeply for. But more than that, she was shocked by the reality of the situation. She was an artist, remember? Even if she was a level-headed leader, she was a bit of a dreamer. To find comfort during her isolation on the Ark, she lost herself in possibilities that could never actually occur. Sometimes, at night on the ground, she would allow herself to think about old fantasies, and new ones too. This was one of them. But then it was actually happening, and Wanheda didn’t know what to do, so she pulled away. She had to.”

“What did Heda do?” The girl asks, enthralled even if she has already heard this story many times over. 

“Heda? Heda pulled away, twice as fast. Even if she longed for Wanheda, even if the numbness in her heart ceased around the girl from the sky, she respected her. More than anything, she respected her not just as a potential lover or leader but as a person too. She wanted the best for Wanheda, even if it meant not the best for herself.” 

“And then the betrayal on the mountain,” her daughter yawns, just as interested as she is sleepy. 

“Do you want me to stop?” Her mother asks, rubbing careful circles into her daughter’s back.

“No, no. Keep going. I’m listening. I want to hear the end.” 

“All of Wanheda’s people and some of Heda’s were trapped inside what was called Mount Weather. It was a place where yet another civilization lived, but they were different from the Grounders and Skaikru. They couldn’t breathe the air of the earth—their bodies were not adjusted to it. They had a special system inside the Mountain that protected them from the radiation. But like all humans, they were selfish. That wasn’t good enough. Their scientists and leaders were keeping Heda’s people in cages to perform experiments, they were drilling into the spines of Wanheda’s to take out what’s called marrow to try to rewire their people to be able to breathe the air outside. Worst of all, while all of this was going on, there were families and children inside of the Mountain. They had no idea.” 

She pauses, planting a kiss to her daughter’s temple when she hears her shudder. “The plan that Heda and Wanheda so carefully worked out was to distract the Mountain Men, who knew they were coming, and to get inside to get their people out. They had a switch, a remote control to turn the power of the Mountain off. This would allow them passage into the Mountain, where the armies could infiltrate and get their people out. They thought that this would be it, that they would get their people back. From then on, there would be no need to carry on much of a truce. They knew this, Heda and Wanheda. So when Heda put her palm on top of Wanheda’s, which was clutching the remote, maybe the tremor of Wanheda’s hand wasn’t just nerves of the operation ahead. Maybe their own future was just as much represented by this finite mission, rather than being vast as space, or expansive as land.” 

“But the switch didn’t work. It was tragic, and it was beyond adjustable in terms of their plan. So Heda made a deal.” She doesn’t need to hear her daughter’s gasp to know she is just as shocked by the story’s twist tonight as she is any other night. It is the kind of ending that never quite dilutes in pain, that always aches and forever stings. 

“Heda had agreed to retreat so long as her people joined her. They stumbled out of the doors, spindly and green in color, as Heda stood with tight lips. Wanheda’s eyes grew wide when she realized her people would never follow, and after this, she wouldn’t likely see Heda again. Her voice broke and finally, finally it was as if those two souls were parting, and suddenly, Wanheda could feel all the pain of it. What most people forget is that Heda did too.” 

“The last words Heda spoke to Wanheda were perhaps a promise, perhaps a goodbye, or perhaps they were the Commander allowing herself to hope after all this time. With blood on her mouth and no air in her chest, she spoke them, she traced over her lover’s face with a sorrowful gaze and she quietly said, ‘May we meet again.’”

“Wanheda was heartbroken, but she was just as deeply distressed. She had to get her people out of there, no matter what that meant. Unlike Heda, she had only become accustomed to killing in the recent months, and even so it was something she had been taught all her life was wrong. But there was no right thing. There was only what Wanheda had to do. So she pulled yet another switch, and this time it worked, this time it turned off the air flow for the Mountain Men and killed them all—not just guards or villains, but grandparents and children. Wanheda, she did that. She had to. That is what she told herself.” 

“Immediately, she fled. She had saved her people one too many times, and she needed to escape the duty; she was suffocating and had to get away from her regrets. She disguised herself and lived like the savage she once so feared encountering, much less becoming. This—her choice at the Mountain, her mysterious descent into the wildness—is how she earned her name—the Commander of Death.”

“And then Wanheda submerged into the world of ambiguities—she was neither good nor bad. She wore a cloak of tattered rags, the hood pulled over her head. If she came for you, you wouldn’t know until she was right in front of you. She was as cunning as she was she was brave, and if you looked her in the face you would be confronted with the irrevocable truth that she was beautiful, even if in a haunting way. When she removed the hood of her cloak, revealing the once golden hair of hers now stained with the blood of her enemies, you would know your life was about to change. Either she would protect you at all costs, either she would elicit your best qualities and demand you improve the worst, or she would kill you, in some form or another. Just as Wanheda haunted the earth, Heda haunted her. They loved, then lost, and some may say they never stopped loving much at all.” 

She glances toward her daughter to see that she has fallen asleep. She herself is tired after a long day of walks with the local children in her bare feet, but she wants to finish the story tonight. Not where she usually ends it, at this very spot, but where it actually ended. Where the pain that dissipated with time once again begins. “But someone managed to capture Wanheda, not for a bounty or to deliver her own death. Prince Roan of Agzeda was told to bring her to Polis. And so he did.”

“Despite his strength, it was no easy trek. To this day, no one knows much about what labors of Prince Roan’s it took, but when Wanheda was brought to the capitol, her face was scratched, her rage was immeasurable, and her hair was hardly still red. Wanheda was led into a room with a bag over her head, her screams silenced by a gag. She thought this could really be the end. After so much time of isolation, she was hardly capable of thought beyond much of a primal sense. Some may even argue she lost all capacity for love.” 

“Wanheda was incredibly disoriented, but the first thing she could decipher once the bag had been removed was light. It was no coincidence that contained within that light was the one she loved and yet loathed the most from the beginning of time. But in that moment, all she could feel was hate. She swore at Heda in her own throne room, she spat at her face. She threatened to kill her as she was dragged out by guards. But Wanheda never killed Heda, she never could. For someone who brought about death so easily that she was named for it, this said something. This said something huge. But for a week, Wanheda spoke no words to Heda, out of anger, out of disdain, out of pain.” 

“The path to forgiveness was nearly impossible. Before emotions, came politics, and with politics came enough distrust to stretch for miles. Heda met Wanheda’s refusal to cooperate with encouragement not to dwell on the past. What Wanheda didn’t know was that while she was able to run from her regrets, Heda had to stand and face hers. Every night, she lost sleep worrying whether her lover remained alive. Every night, she reviewed her decision and contemplated whether she could have altered her actions in order to save both her people and Wanheda’s. Every morning she woke realizing it wasn’t just Wanheda’s people she wanted to save. It was the woman she loved, her other half. If she weren’t Commander, that is all Wanheda would be: a lover, but a lover, Heda was learning, was everything.” 

“She couldn’t change the past, but she could assure that she’d never have to choose between Wanheda and her people again. If Wanheda bowed before her, if Skaikru joined her coalition, she would have the duty to protect them. They would be a part of every decision she made, and Wanheda could be integral in that.”

“At first, Wanheda refused this offer. But it became clear that it was the right thing for her people, and even if she had abandoned that duty months ago, it reoccurred. She just couldn’t escape, and so as she bowed before Heda, she tried to understand how someone in the Commander’s position could exist with the pure intention of always, always doing the right thing for her people. 

“But it was only later when Heda and Wanheda were stripped of their elaborate face paint and returned to their ordinary clothing that Heda’s true hopes were revealed. In an exchange just as poignant, Heda bowed before Wanheda. Heda, the Commander who bowed to no one, who had merely subjects and no orders to adhere to, dropped to her knees at Wanheda’s feet. It was the ultimate sign of respect. As Wanheda stared in awe, Heda, with a voice that wavered just the slightest bit, swore fealty to Wanheda. She swore to protect her always, to be selfless not like how she must as Commander, but out of choice. The words reverberated in the empty room. They guided themselves to the deepest, most intimate part of Wanheda’s soul, and so despite the betrayal, she found Heda to perhaps be forgivable. For that reason, she extended her hand, to bring Heda back to her level, where she belonged. Heda would never bow to anyone of the whole earth or sky ever again.” 

“But Heda’s move to initiate Skaikru into her coalition was not received well by her people. In a coup, her strength was questioned by her ambassadors, and she was challenged to a duel with Prince Roan of Agzeda, the very man who was the only warrior strong enough to capture Wanheda and return her to Heda. Fate had a funny way of delivering and then reclaiming, repeatedly.”

“Heda was most certain that death was to be her own fate. All along as Commander, she had prepared to be killed at any moment, despite her extensive training. She had made peace with her death, as she had nothing in life that demanded her existence. If she were to die, her spirit would choose the next Commander, and she had many promising officiates. But Wanheda disagreed.” 

“All of Heda’s potential successors were children. Wanheda needed Heda herself, and it wasn’t just for the protection she ensured. Besides, Heda made all of her officiates swear to protect Skaikru, namely Wanheda, even if Wanheda was unaware. What Wanheda couldn’t stand was the idea that Heda was knowingly preparing to die when she needed her. Wanheda slept at night by counting the days it may take for her to forgive the one she loved. She couldn’t bear the notion that Heda wouldn’t be alive when she finally made peace with her.”

“So Heda prepared to fight alone. It was single combat, so no one besides Prince Roan would be inside the ring with her anyway. But even so, despite the many people there chanting her name, she felt a sort of emptiness within. This was not the all consuming calmness she encountered prior to a battle. It was not the content nothingness of her mind when she was preparing to immerse herself completely in a task or a challenge. This was a lonely sort of feeling, one which she had never felt in place of her adrenaline rushing before. But she had to fight. She had to prepare herself. It was only when Wanheda, a look of bewilderment upon her face, parted from the crowd that Heda knew what being entirely enraptured and yet extremely focused felt like. Her body ceased to move, her thoughts came to an incredibly sudden halt all in the single second it took for Wanheda to reach up and remove her hood.” 

“The hood,” comes a slight gurgle. 

The mother tenses in shock. “What?” 

Her daughter has clearly awoken, and sleep tumbles from her lips as she yawns. “When Wanheda takes down her hood, the world is about to change.” 

Her mother swoops down to kiss her daughter’s nose and her eyelids as she drifts back into sleep. No war paint adorns her face, but the swift mind of a fighter and the visionary heart of a leader already stow inside of her. 

“Heda survived. She won. Rather than take the life of Prince Roan, she speared Agzeda’s Queen. Despite this, despite the quieting of rebellion from the Ice Nation, problems still arose. Wanheda remained in Polis, in an attempt to maintain peace and also at the inability to part ways again with Heda, but in her absence Skaikru appointed a new leader who chose actions with terrible consequences. He alongside one of Clarke’s biggest allies massacred an army of Heda’s people in their sleep, who were traveling to protect Skaikru. Heda and Wanheda could no longer find solstice in each other’s presence, the sketches of Heda done by Wanheda and the conversations about the essence of life and death and love left unfinished. Wanheda was preparing to return to her people only out of necessity, only to correct the error of their ways. It was then, in this departure, that Wanheda and Heda finally acknowledged their feelings. There was no more denying, as this love had existed for too long to be hidden. The last time they had said goodbye to one another, it had been at the hands of Heda’s betrayal. This goodbye once again felt like an unfair turn of the tides, but this time by fate, by the will of stars to their love on the ground.”

“Their people would never be one people. But Heda and Wanheda would forever be one soul. That much was inevitable. They had to part, despite the incredible pain that caused, despite the shattering of their shared mind and heart. They were left with pieces of one another, rather than the clean break down the middle they had when they were first born. And maybe, maybe that overwhelming amount of shared traits and stolen glances, of contrast yet balance and delicate kisses, maybe that is what made their love evident.” 

“Even if the entirety of the human race was oblivious while all other living things sensed it, there was one person who knew of the love. Titus, Heda’s advisor, recognized it and he feared it, predicting that it would cause Heda’s downfall. Little did he know that it would be him, only him, who would elicit such devastation.”

“Wanheda was going to leave. Even so, Titus believed that was not enough. Grounders absolutely never used guns, even if Skaikru was hardly without them. But in the minutes before Wanheda’s departure, Titus picked one up. He began to aim for Wanheda who ducked in fear, as she was defenseless.”

“Heda had vowed to always protect her. She swore it. Still, the shots rang on, and the second Heda heard them she bolted.”

“She ran for Wanheda’s chambers where the sound was coming from. The bullet shells falling to the floor, the drowning clang whenever Titus pulled the trigger, it was nothing matched against Clarke’s yells. In those moments, she was not begging Heda to come save her. She was scared, and so her fear sounded like only a whisper.”

“But Heda heard it. Of course, Heda heard it. And when she opened the door, that very moment, Titus fired a shot. And by the work of chance and perhaps some form of twisted fate, Heda was right there. Heda was standing right there.” 

“It was a tragedy,” the mother chokes out, staring at her daughter’s sleeping form, willing to protect her always, to love her so fiercely no one could possibly harm her. “And while this tragedy had no desirable ending, sometimes, sometimes the two lovers see one another in their sleep. For so many reasons, Heda still asks for forgiveness.” 

__________________

It is late when the mother slips into her chambers. She has told her daughter her favorite story and then some. She wonders if she were awake for the end if she would still like it. She wonders if her daughter knew her true identity if she would still love her.

She is just slipping into bed when she sees it. She has no curtains for the large window by her desk, and so she has a clear view of the night sky. A shooting star journeys through the darkness, and she draws nearer, pressing her palms against the glass to better see it. Home, she thinks, this is what home used to feel like. 

When she turns to climb back into her empty bed, she notices that it is no longer empty. Perched atop it is her lover, her supporter, her confidante, her soulmate. She puts her hands to her eyes in shock to stop the immediate flow of tears but immediately pries back her fingers. It has been so long since she has seen her, she wants to see everything. She wants to watch as the arms that were not always strong reach up to embrace her, as round cheeks raise in a smile, as the chin splits just as her heart does from sheer joy, from the relief and the pain and the awe and the reverence that her soul, her old and aching soul, is about the become whole again. She cannot believe her eyes as blue irises search her moss ones, as blond hair tangles with her brown locks, as the girl from the sky who was then buried in the ground reaches for the woman who taught her, learned her, and loved her. 

With shaking hands, Lexa, once Heda, now fully and overwhelmingly loved, reaches to remove her deceased lover’s hood. She could not save her from Titus’s shot, but now, in this moment, she feels all the adoration and determination and resilience she has collected raising their daughter over the years overflowing, saving them both. Lexa has lived 30 years without her love. In those 30 years, she has accomplished peace for her people, and since then withdrawn from her large position of power to live inside a very small village. In that village, she raises a daughter she found abandoned after a fire. Even if only Lexa is alive to care for her, the child has always been theirs. 

When Lexa regains composure, even if it’s not much, she ceases to tremble and instead holds the love of her life with her full arms and all of her heart. “You came back,” she whispers into blonde waves, into aging and yet eternal lips. 

“Yes,” they say, the one behind them as tactful as she is loving, a single word as witty as it is caring. She is so much like her daughter. It must be because Lexa cannot imagine living without some of her shining through, her best qualities all shared with someone else. Not someone. The one. Always. “When are you going to tell our daughter our real names?” She laughs and it sounds like rebirth, like she never left. In some ways, she never has.

Lexa brings her closer, their bodies harboring no space as if they were meant to always be touching, the sky to the ground, earth to space. “I will tell her,” Lexa begins, “when she knows that she is named for the love of my life, my soul mate, the one who has been waiting for me since the beginning of time.” 

“I will always wait,” is said at the same time as, “She is named after you,” and they are so in love that time does not dare interrupt them, reality makes no move to interfere. It is only Lexa and her lover, together always, but together here after so many years. When she gets to see her again in her dreams, like she does now, Lexa never has to ask for forgiveness. It is written in their names, like an etch of promise, a reminder that if Lexa waits, someday she and her lover will finally be alive together again and in love all the same. Until then, the woman in the cloak visits her in her dreams, reminding her that “maybe someday” is never too far away. 

___________________

In the other room, even if she is only seven years old, Clarke dreams of peace that will last an eternity.

**Author's Note:**

> *spoilers*
> 
> Did I fool ya??? I bet you were like, "that is so obviously Clarke telling the story," but ha! it was not! it was lexa! read it again if you're in shock, it makes sense that it's told from her perspective. that being said, i did diverge from canon a little bit, considering that it was Clarke and not Lexa who died. But I figured that it would be an interesting twist and could fit the course of the story. That being said, I hope you liked reading the end, especially the bit with the daughter being named after Clarke, as much as i loved writing it. This fic took a tremendous amount of effort so if you could leave kudos or better yet comment your thoughts that would be fantastic!!!


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